The sheer escapism Fire Emblem offers is nearly impossible to downplay, but it's difficult not to be judgmental of the game's four-years-ago presentation.

An incredibly attractive game with a vast world to explore and countless hours of entertainment in store for those willing to make the investment. But we warn you: those who venture to Vana'diel may not be coming back.

New scenery, new enemies, and new quests abound for fans of the third Elder Scrolls game, but the familiar story line and lack of any real innovation keeps Bloodmoon from shining too brightly.

Boom Blox delivers so much content, that it would be hard not to find something to love in this title. Give it a try. What looks to be rather simple is actually complex and will keep you playing for hours.

Maybe next year will bring us that much closer to having a Madden game like never before. It’s still a good game, slightly above average, but not as great as it should be.

Technical issues aside, Far Cry 2 is an epic (and epic-ly long) take on the first-person shooter. The setting, open word, and side quests make it feel more like a more action-oriented "Grand Theft Auto," or a less ridiculous "Just Cause," than the original. Which, admittedly, will annoy fans of the original (present company included).

A perfect example of why shooters have become such a niche genre. It's a good game that's well made. It's even got an interesting hook to keep the hard core happy. But the insane difficulty will keep most players from getting past the first level before giving up. And with the ultra-short playing time, even shooter fans might not find enough to like here.

The slow-burning story is fun, and the dedication to stealth results in game mechanics that easily surpass the competition. It's an essential purchase for anyone who values an atmosphere of great gameplay over body counts.

A superb experience, sure to both delight fighting game fans and bring complete newbies into the fold.

But the exhilaration can quickly turn to frustration, perhaps hyperventilation, if you repeatedly fail some of the game's tougher missions.

The game runs at an amazing pace with every moment filled with meaningful tension and tangible atmosphere. "Metal Gear Solid" is hailed as a masterpiece with good reason, and this revised version serves its legacy well.

This console version makes enough changes to the original game that even hard-core "Sims" purists will want to give it a spin.

In their attempt to dress up a solid brawler, Rockstar actually hurt the experience a bit by adding endless, tedious minigames that pretty much overpower the game in the early levels.

The game encourages and, more importantly reduces, the tedium of grinding by rewarding exploration – an act that, for most of us, is a reward in and of itself.

The story doesn’t make much sense, and there are many truisms at work here, but the gameplay and presentation are phenomenal, and both the single and multiplayer aspects of the game are impressive.

You just have to be willing to look past the technical bugs and the fact that you're paying full price for a game that should have been released as a mission-disc, not a full-fledged sequel.

While Final Fantasy XI doesn't currently offer quite as much variety and depth as competing games --especially on the PC -- its superb graphics, sound, and dedicated community make it a match for the competition.

Given that all you're doing is shooting everything around you, it's almost essential to give the player a continual sense of progress and achievement by opening up new locales frequently. Otherwise the whole exercise collapses under its own redundancy.

Not only adds more stuff to the Sims canon, it improves and more importantly expands the game in subtle but far-reaching ways.

On the downside, deep as peripheral options are, the title doesn't feel like much of a step forward from its predecessor, "Hot Pursuit 2."

This is a difficult game, then, but it’s not an unfair or unusually frustrating one, and it’s a game good enough that the rewards for pushing forward are worth it.

PoP is a group of interesting ideas searching for a stronger game to hold them all together.

This is far more than just a port; it's a comprehensive console-specific retooling. The thought of that may make some fans sick to their stomach, and yes, some of the more detailed options for taxation and civilization management have been automated to a greater or lesser degree, but there's still plenty of strategy here for even hardcore fans to appreciate.

All hype and scare-the-girlfriend jokes aside, Silent Hill 3 is a truly disturbing, frightening, and bloody experience (more or less in that order). This is the current high-mark of scary games, period, with production values that put most contemporary horror-flicks to shame.

They have succeeded far beyond my admittedly high expectations. As a KOTOR fan, I finally have my long-awaited sequel(s). As an MMO fan, I am hooked. As a Star Wars fan, I am enthralled.

Technical issues aside, Far Cry 2 is an epic (and epic-ly long) take on the first-person shooter. The setting, open word, and side quests make it feel more like a more action-oriented "Grand Theft Auto," or a less ridiculous "Just Cause," than the original. Which, admittedly, will annoy fans of the original (present company included).

An improvement on the original, and the new environments add a considerable level of depth. Fans of the series will also appreciate the tweaks to the character development system, like the two new classes and special abilities.

The career mode needs the same polish found in EA's other sports franchises, boxers would benefit from additional moves (like clinching) or individual ratings for specific punches, and some notable roster omissions might disappoint ardent fans (Holmes, Hagler, De La Hoya, Foreman, and others are MIA).